Le Pen removes party head after Holocaust denial statements uncovered

As Marine Le Pen moves forward to the second round of the French presidential election, she attempts to quell controversy after accusations that her replacement as head of the National Front holds Holocaust denial sentiments surfaced.

French right-wing presidential candidate Marine Le Pen Pen announced on Friday that she "loathes Holocaust deniers." Le Pen said this after it was discovered that her replacement as head of the National Front party, Jean-Francois Jalkh, had previously questioned facts about Holocaust. Jalkh stepped down as the party leader just a few days after he replaced Le Pen due to the accusations.

In order to prevent her competitor Emmanuel Macron from gaining support over this controversy, Le Pen emphasized that there is no one in her party who believes this. Furthermore, in an attempt to strengthen her case, during an interview, Le Pen highlighted that she had removed her own father, Jean-Marie Le Pen, from the party he founded 40 years earlier due to accusations of Holocaust denial.

Jalkh (center) Photo Credit: Reuters/Channel 2 News

Le Pen attempted to mitigate the damage after an interview Jalkh made 17 years ago in which he questioned the Nazis’ use of Zyklon B to kill Jews came to light. According to Jalkh, it was a technically impossible method for mass extermination because decontaminating the gas chambers from Zyklon B would have taken days and therefore would have been inefficient.